Electroencephalography (EEG) is an electrophysiological monitoring method to record electrical activity of the brain. It is typically noninvasive, with the electrodes placed along the scalp, although invasive electrodes are sometimes used such as in electroencephalography (EEG) measures voltage fluctuations resulting from ionic current within the neurons of the brain. In clinical contexts, EEG refers to the recording of the brain's spontaneous electrical activity over a period of time, as recorded from multiple electrodes placed on the scalp. Diagnostic applications generally focus either on event-related potentials or on the spectral content of EEG. The former investigates potential fluctuations time locked to an event like stimulus onset or button press. The latter analyzes the type of neural oscillations that can be observed in EEG signals in the frequency domain.
It has been suggested to measure and record the brain's spontaneous electrical activity to configure the EEG for control of devices. For example, the U.S. Air Force demonstrated in the 1980s that pilots wearing simple EEG head gear could control computer displays. Such EEG is configured prior to controlling the computer displays during real-time operation. Presently, EEG systems are being configured to control things like “quad copters”. In fact, EEG sensors may be implemented inside a head of a user. As this technology becomes more prevalent one could imagine that configuring of the EEG systems prior to real-time to control a wide range of equipment in the real-time operation could become pervasive.
In recent years, the sophistication of lighting control systems have increased significantly, for example, offering lighting scene, profile or schedule manipulation for individual lighting devices, for groups of lighting devices or all for lighting devices at a controlled premises. Depending on the technology of the luminaires, control functions may include simple ON/OFF control, intensity control (e.g. dimming) and even control of color characteristics (e.g. for tunable white luminaires or the like). Building Automation Control (BAC) systems or Building Management Systems (BMS) also have improved in the sophistication of the ability to reach every unit item or controllable appliance at the premises, offer informative, intuitive access to information and readily customizable control operations for every controllable device on the premises that is adapted for BAC or BMS type networked monitoring and control functions. Many such sophisticated lighting control and BAC systems are also configured with user's preferred settings for the control functions at the premises specific to the user. At least some of these systems may be configured with a user hierarchy granting different permissions to specific control functions based on a level of hierarchy assigned to each potential user.
Currently no such EEG systems exist that are configured with user preferences and user hierarchy based on the EEG for control of the lighting operations of the lighting systems and/or building management operations of the building management system. Further, no such EEG systems exist that provide for such user preferences or user hierarchy during real-time operation of the EEG device to control the light operations or the building management operations.